Allen, Sterling & Lothrop—Who We Are:

Shirley Brannigan: PresidentShirley first worked as a secretary at Allen, Sterling, & Lothrop on Middle St in Portland when her father, Mickey Maguire, bought the business in the 1960’s. Under her father’s leadership the struggling business thrived and she and her husband Tony to took over the business in 1982.

Shirley is as much a fixture at AS&L as her father was and can be found most days doing what she likes best, helping customers and tending her greenhouse. She enjoys all the people associated with AS&L from the customers to her co-workers and employees—she especially loves working with her children Shawn and Jenn.

Jenn Herring: Seed-Room ManagerAppropriately, Jenn’s earliest memory of AS&L is learning how to hand package seed from her Nana. Like her mother and brother Jenn enjoys the people at AS&L, “They are like family.”

As the Seed-Room manager Jenn wants to take AS&L seeds to the next level by increasing the availability of AS&L seeds through mail-order and on-line sales, she hopes to make Maine’s oldest seed company Maine’s best known seed company.

Shawn Brannigan: General ManagerShawn doesn’t know what to call his role at AS&L. His title is General Manager and he does everything from washing the toilets to purchasing, to making financial decisions and lots of things in between!

His earliest memory of AS&L is getting freight elevator rides in the old Portland store from Henry when he was 4-5 years old. In between waiting on customers he would give Shawn rides on the old elevator—pulling him up and down using the hand-rope. He would also give Shawn rides on the old hand-trucks. Henry was a strong presence at AS&L. He ran the AS&L wholesale seed department from 1945-2000—when he retired at youthful age of 90!

Shawn has been working at AS&L for more than 30 years and has met very few people he hasn’t enjoyed. Both employees and customers. The employees stay a long time and become more like family than employees. Most AS&L employees have worked here more than ten years.

What Shawn wants for the next hundred years isn’t a lot different from the first hundred years, with God’s guidance AS&L will continue to change with the times, look for new opportunities and make good business decisions.